For more than 10 years, Women, Words and Wisdom (WWW) have been holding conversations about women’s issues. This year, the tradition continues on Thursday, Oct. 17, where the group will be holding its annual educational panel fundraiser at the Legacy Club at Woodcrest in Cherry Hill. The event is ticketed and will run from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Though the group has only been a nonprofit with a 501c3 status for the past three years, Marlton resident and president of the organization Jo-Anne Weiner explained that WWW has existed for many years before that, since she had worked in the IRS more than 10 years ago. It had started small, as a conversation at a restaurant with women who wrote books and from there, it had grown into more formal discussions.
Throughout the year, WWW aims to hold a fundraiser and a scholarship essay contest in the spring and a more educational panel and gathering in the fall.
“The money we raise at our events go to local women struggling to pay for college tuition and textbooks,” Weiner said. “… Women, Words, and Wisdom’s mission is to inform women about current issues so they can make beneficial life choices for themselves.”
This year’s theme is “Celebrating Women who Advocate for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and will feature Congressman Andy Kim as the keynote speaker as well as the following panelists:
- Robin Bilazarian, Brief Therapy Expert
- Lynda Calderone, Esq., Co-founding Partner of Calderone McKay, LLC
- Dr. Herb Conaway, New Jersey Assemblyman
- Denise Davis, Financial Advisor and member of NAWBO South Jersey
- Reverend Eric Dobson, Deputy Director of Fair Share Housing Center
- Sarah Holley, President of the Burlington County Federation of Democratic Women
The panelists will be speaking on the theme of “Successfully Thriving in a World of Uncertainty” and will speak to equal pay for women, education and women’s health.
Weiner explained that their main theme was in alignment with the Women’s History Month Theme (which was diversity, equity and inclusion this year), and that the topic for the panel discussion came about after reading through supreme court decisions.
“The supreme level court decisions as well as legislative decisions that affect women negatively and the most egregious is the one we most concentrated on,” Weiner said. “If we saw these issues were occurring frequently where it was negatively impacting women, we built (the panel) around that.”
Each year, the nonprofit finds experts in the field for whatever topics they are discussing to help educate women so they can think about the information they are getting and make an educated decision later.
Panelists will have around 20 minutes to speak on each of the three topics– equal pay, education and women’s health– before opening the discussion up for questions.
Women, Words and Wisdom will hold its annual panel and fundraiser on Thursday, Oct. 17 featuring keynote speaker Andy Kim.
This year, they will also be honoring Loretta Winters, Gloucester County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) with the Ida B. Wells award. The award was something they have only recently started giving out in honor of a woman whose bravery and tenacity matches that of Ida B. Wells, who led an anti-lynching crusade through investigative journalism.
Weiner described Winters as someone who “tries to help everybody she meets.”
“Every group she meets, she finds out what their needs are and finds a way to help them,” Weiner said. “She just never stops helping others.”
To learn more, visit https://www.womenwordsandwisdom.org/.
